Stallman Blasts Cloud Computing

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In an article Monday in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Richard Stallman, president of Boston’s Free Software Foundation, criticized the trend toward utility-style “cloud computing” as a marketing strategy designed to lock users into proprietary computing platforms. Stallman included Web-based services such as Google’s Gmail in his critique. “One reason you should not use Web applications to do your computing is that you lose control,” he told the Guardian. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenseless.”